


Be You To Me

by jellyryans (ryankellycc)



Series: break up my lonely [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Universe, First Meetings, Gen, HQ Rarepair Bang 2020, Includes ART!, Inspired by Music, M/M, Non-Canon Relationship, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Tanaka Ryuunosuke is a Good Friend, Team Bonding, Team Feels, who doesn't want my tanaka-heavy retelling of canon????
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:46:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23621782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryankellycc/pseuds/jellyryans
Summary: Suga bit the inside of his cheek and wondered about the nature of advice, given and received, while he observed Tanaka play. Tanaka had ignored his senior by continuing to vocally intimidate the ball, but Suga swore he saw him hold back at least twice over the course of practice.That observation led to more questions. If Tanaka wanted to scream on the court and proved he was learning, what would be the point in trying to change him? Who wouldn’t be envious of someone who could remain so true to himself?And when did he start thinking Tanaka wascute?Art by@AceMossyon Twitter!
Relationships: Azumane Asahi & Sawamura Daichi & Sugawara Koushi, Sugawara Koushi/Tanaka Ryuunosuke
Series: break up my lonely [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1700347
Comments: 13
Kudos: 40
Collections: HQ Rarepair Bang 2020





	Be You To Me

**Author's Note:**

> Partially inspired by [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3tgV5Uoduo).

People came to Japan from all over the world to see the cherry blossoms. In full bloom, the trees managed to charm even those who had never entered spring without them; the delicate pink and white flowers had been woven into the stories told to those who would ink the first handscrolls with calligraphy brushes and capture the first landscapes with paint. Their transient beauty reminded them to be fully present, that life was so very precious, and so very short. 

Suga only spared them a passing glance as he filed into the main auditorium for opening ceremonies. 

He fell in line with the crowd of black-clad students and kept his back straight while he sat through mind-numbingly dull speeches, formal announcements, awkward introductions, and, worst of all, proud parents with smiles too big for their faces. 

The next morning, he did everything that was expected of him. He dutifully introduced himself to his new classmates during homeroom, committed his class schedule to memory, listened to the teachers, labeled his notebooks accordingly, and secretly selected the students that might help him pass the time in class. 

To push through those first days, he relied on the minimal level of obedience that had been ingrained in him early on by the Japanese school system to navigate his intellectual responsibilities like one might rely on muscle memory to navigate a familiar neighborhood.

It wasn’t that he wanted to slack off during his second year, or that he didn’t care about his future. As first years, they had already gone through a preliminary round of career counseling, and Suga had already told his counselor that education would probably figure deeply into his adult life, whether he was a teacher or a professional student. 

Those first few days were simple trials to be endured until the _real_ first day of school. 

Changing into his gakuran was a dress rehearsal for changing into his sweat-stained practice uniform. Volunteering first to help his teacher set up the classroom was a warm-up for unrolling the nets in the gymnasium. Learning his new classmates’ names was the unsatisfying appetizer to the hearty meal of learning the names of the new first-years that would be joining the team.

Suga wouldn’t go so far as to say he leaped out of bed on that auspicious morning, but he patted himself on the back for only hitting the snooze button on his phone twice instead three, or four, or five times. 

He shoveled rice and whatever meat and vegetables his neighbor had dropped off a few days earlier into his mouth — Suzumi-san wasn’t the world’s greatest cook but he wasn’t about to complain about a free meal — with thoughts of the two other people who looked forward to this day as much as he did.

Daichi probably had one, if not both, of his siblings hanging off his arms as he helped himself to another serving of whatever his mom prepared for breakfast. Just thinking about the warm, grilled fish that Sawamura-san made the last time he’d joined the Sawamura family for breakfast made Suga drool around the bite of cold food already in his mouth. 

Suga chose to ignore the fact that he knew what Asahi’s parents looked like and giggled to himself as he imagined Asahi sitting down for breakfast with a man and a woman who shared his exact face, beard and all. 

He dwelled on his own hilarity for long enough that, the next time he looked down at his phone, he threw his bowl in the sink with a loud yelp. The sticky grains of rice would cement to the plastic, which meant the dishes would be a real pain in the ass that night, but he’d be damned before he’d let chores delay the start of his second year as a member of the Karasuno Volleyball Club. 

He sprinted out of the house and ran down the alley until he got to the first intersection. He squeezed himself against the wall and inched along quietly until he made it to the second intersection. Suga listened for Daichi’s distinctive footsteps from the opposite direction before tip-toeing behind the vending machine that sat in the corner of the crossroads that connected their walking routes. 

As soon as Daichi’s shoes crunched on the pavement in front of the machine, Suga jumped in front of him with a loud, “Sup?”

Daichi jumped back with his hand on his heart. “Jesus, Suga!”

“I guess some people think he’s up there,” Suga said cheekily, pointing up at the sky. 

“Wow,” he drawled, loosening his grip on his shirt with the ghost of a smile hovering at corners of his mouth. “How long’d it take you to think of that one?”

At sixteen, Sawamura Daichi already cut an imposing figure. Suga had spent plenty of evenings staring at his own bony shoulders in the mirror and wondering what sort of genetic lottery Daichi had won that allowed him to fill out his uniform by the end of his first year in high school. His only consolation was that, of the two of them, he at least tried to be the funny. 

“A true comedian never reveals his secrets!”

“That’s not how it goes.”

“Alright Language Police-san,” Suga said, stifling a laugh. “Should we wait for Asahi?” 

They both peered down the alley where Asahi usually came from. 

“Nah,” Daichi said decisively. 

“What if he waits for us all day?” Suga asked, falling in step with Daichi as he walked toward the school. “What if he’s there when it starts to get cold tonight and gets pneumonia? What if some hooligans come around and steal his backpack? You know he’d be too scared to put his bulk to good use!” 

“Hooligans? What are you even…” Daichi looked at Suga out of the corner of his eye and cleared his throat. “If anything, someone’ll think he’s trying to kidnap them, and he’s got a phone.”

Suga let out the breath he’d been holding. He’d been joking, mostly, but sometimes very real feelings bled through his crackling veneer of whimsy. Suga considered telling Daichi how amazing he was for noticing the undercut of anxiety in his rambling, but ultimately concluded that was too early in the day for poignant bonding moments. 

“Plus,” Daichi continued, “We’re already late.”

“For a very important date!” Suga chirped happily. 

Daichi laughed for the second time that morning, which Suga took as a good omen.

  
  
  
  
  


The third years were already in the club room when they entered, and their captain glanced at them over his shoulder without a greeting. “When you guys are changed, could you start setting up?” 

He turned back to his conversation before they could answer, so they kept their mouths shut. 

They were the only ones in the gym, and Daichi was quiet as they worked. Each squeak of their trainers against the polished wooden floor felt like a knife in the gray matter between Suga’s ears. 

“Whatcha thinkin’?” He whispered. 

The corners of Daichi’s mouth tugged downward. “Just that it’ll probably take me a while to get used to Kurokawa-san’s style.”

Suga nodded in understanding. Kurokawa-san had been alright when Tashiro-senpai was around. Now, he talked to his juniors like they were cardboard cut-outs. It reminded him of talking to his parents. Daichi’s frown, however, took precedence over the things he couldn’t change. “Tashiro-senpai sure was one of a kind,” he said with a teasing smile.

“Yeah,” Daichi said. His face softened with the memory of their former captain. “He was really inspiring.”

“Mhm, inspiring,” Suga said, tapping his chin with his index finger and then raising it in the air to count off the very top of the list of Tashiro-senpai’s good qualities. “And smart, and dedicated, and happy-go-lucky, and nice, and pretty…”

Daichi flushed. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“You can just admit it, you know?”

“Huh?”

“You had a big fat crush on Tashiro-senpai.”

Daichi’s blush exploded across the bridge of his nose and the apples of his cheeks, staining them a gloriously vibrant red. “Shuddup.”

“You’re not denying it!”

“Seriously Suga,” Daichi warned. “Knock it off.”

They were within earshot of their senpai now, who had wandered in from the club room to start stretching. “Fine, but you know I know.”

“You don’t know anything,” Daichi said. Suga flashed an innocent smile, which made him roll his eyes with an amused huff. 

Asahi eventually joined them with the cart of volleyballs they’d use for morning drills, and Suga took a moment to curse the genetic lottery once again by blowing a loud raspberry in frustration. Not only had Asahi’s hair grown long enough that he could put most of it up, the glass-hearted giant must’ve had another growth spurt. When Suga neglected to cut his hair, it became a tangled, frizzy mess, and he hadn’t grown more than two inches in the last six months. 

“What?” Daichi asked.

Suga pouted. “It’s like you guys just come here to show me up!”

“Huh?” Asahi said. 

“Nothing. Nope, nada, zilch.”

Daichi’s grin turned savage. “Suga’s just jealous that you look like a drug dealer.”

Asahi blanched. “I tried something new… Is it my hair? Oh god, is this how drug dealers do their hair now?”

“Yep,” Daichi said confidently. “Saw it on the news the other day. All criminals do their hair exactly like that.”

Suga burst into loud peals of unchecked laughter. “It’s just,” he wheezed between deep breaths, holding on to his knee for support with one hand and pointing at Asahi with the other. “Your face!”

“Do you have to point out my face every time?!” 

“Suga!” Daichi hissed his name at the same time their captain said “Sugawara-kun.” 

An involuntary shudder ran down Suga’s back. He stood up a little straighter. 

“Are you ready to get started?”

“Yes, Kurokawa-san,” Suga said with a short bow. “Sorry.”

Kurokawa sighed in response. He looked bored before he’d even started speaking. “Alright,” he said. “Let’s do some laps to warm up, and then we’ll shift into passing drills until we have to clean up. Don’t forget, we’re going to have the trial for the newbies during after school practice, so get here on time.”

  
  
  
  
  


Suga had every intention of going straight to the gymnasium after changing, but curiosity put a strong chokehold on his sense of responsibility. Instead of heading down the cement path, he snuck around the back of the staircase and kept hidden as he crept toward the main entrance. 

When he was confident that he wouldn’t expose his position, he crossed his fingers that some of the first years had arrived early and wasn’t disappointed by the three unsuspecting students in generic Karasuno athletic sweats loitering by the main door of the second gymnasium. 

Two of them sat close together, with their backs against the wall and matching clenched jaws. Suga’s stomach twisted uncomfortably. He had been in their exact same position last year and it wasn’t his favorite memory. 

He switched his focus to the other student, who was in the process of beating a track into the concrete with his trainers and thudding steps. 

The guy clenched and unclenched his fists at his sides while he paced with the potential energy of a predator preparing to pounce. Suga started when he threw his back against the wall of the gymnasium and watched as he stuffed his hands into his pockets, closed his eyes, and raised his chin to the sky. 

Suga openly admired his profile. He wasn’t exceptionally tall or aggravatingly bulky, so Suga blamed his coarse, bleached hair for making him seem like he occupied ten times the amount of space his physical body did. Suga dragged his eyes down the line of his forehead as it dipped and curved into his nose, and then down to his lips, which moved as he whispered to himself. His words were inaudible, a silent prayer. 

The sudden approach of their manager shattered the spell.

Shimizu Kiyoko entered their field of vision like the sun breaking over the horizon. Her steps were quick and light, and the soles of her feet barely touched the ground as she glided between the newbies on each side of the door. On the way in, she shared a look with the student Suga had just been admiring. 

He didn’t have to see the guy’s face to know that his jaw had dropped. 

He knew the expression because he’d seen it on Daichi, Asahi, and every other person who had ever laid eyes on her. He was also a hundred percent sure his own reaction had been just as dramatic; he’d woken up more than once from a dream where they’d held hands. He had also dreamed about holding Asahi’s hand, but that was a given. He was a teenage boy with eyes. 

And if he didn’t get back to practice, he’d be a teenage boy without a club. 

Suga identified an exit route that wouldn’t give him away and made it to the gym five minutes before the captain lined them up facing the new recruits. 

When the guy with the bleached hair stepped up, Suga leaned forward on the balls of his feet.

“Tanaka Ryuunosuke from Oujitsu Middle School!” he shouted. ‘Look forward to being on the team!”

“He really exudes the air of the kinda guy who’d never bow down to anyone,” Daichi whispered. 

Suga laughed instinctively and imagined that Tanaka’s explosive debut already had Asahi breaking into a cold sweat. They might’ve had a point, and he might turn out to be a troublemaker, but Suga had a different impression. 

Tanaka’s belligerent expression had come off as passionate and his exceptional volume as pure, unadulterated excitement. 

Suga was transfixed. 

He watched the other first years during their trial match, but his gaze kept coming back to that obnoxiously bright, bleached hair. Tanaka prowled the court the same way he paced outside of the gym, with his energy barely contained, and he attacked each ball with a roar. 

At one point, someone called him out. “Don’t just hit the ball as hard as you can every time, Tanaka.”

Tanaka responded with a single word of affirmation and continued to assaul the ball like it had attacked him personally. 

“… He’s already showing he doesn’t care.” Suga missed the first half of Daichi’s reflection, but he kept talking. “He’s got good instincts though.”

Suga bit the inside of his cheek and wondered about the nature of advice, given and received, while he observed Tanaka play. Tanaka had ignored his senior by continuing to vocally intimidate the ball, but Suga swore he saw Tanaka hold himself back at least twice over the course of practice.

That observation led to more questions. If Tanaka wanted to scream on the court and proved he was learning, what would be the point in trying to change him? Who wouldn’t be envious of someone who could remain so true to himself?

And when did he start thinking Tanaka was _cute_? 

Suga staggered backwards with the realization that he did, in fact, enjoy looking at him. The urge to march on to the court and grab the guy’s collar to ask him what kind of nerve he had made his fingers tingle.

Later, he’d see that Tanaka’s sudden attractiveness wasn’t a surprise so much as the plot twist in a movie that no one had guessed beforehand but that everyone had agreed afterwards as the most obvious conclusion. In the moment, he stayed his shaking hands with the comforting fact that Tanaka’s bleached hair differentiated him from the crowd so, physically, he stood out. He stood out with his roar and his dramatic hand gestures and with the way his dark skin contrasted with the white of his practice shirt when he raised his arm. 

  
  


Suga scoffed at himself. Of course he thought Tanaka was cute. There were plenty of cute people roaming the halls of Karasuno, and he functioned just fine. Tanaka would make an excellent addition to the team, Suga would think he was cute until he stopped being so damn noticeable, and life would go on.

He allowed that he wouldn’t be terribly upset if he dreamed about holding Tanaka’s hand, too. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


In the weeks leading up to the summer Interhigh, Suga had plenty of reasons to be giddy. 

Shortly after meeting Daichi during their first year line-up, they had bumped into each other outside of school. Suga had been tossing a ball against the cement wall of his apartment complex and Daichi had been jogging. Their eyes had met with a spark of understanding. _We’re going to Nationals_ , they thought together.

The next day, under Tashiro-senpai’s guidance, aided by Asahi’s demure conviction, and having promised they wouldn’t wear themselves thin, they had started to train outside of practice, and it had paid off. 

Asahi went green in the face when the title of “ace” was thrown around, but he spiked Suga’s tosses with enough power to send an echo through the gym. Whether he liked it or not, when the team was truly theirs, Asahi would be their ace. 

(They’d protect his glass heart along the way, and if Suga chose to ignore that his version of protection involved a heavy dose of tough love, it was only because Daichi wanted to join in on the fun.)

With Asahi as their ace, Daichi would be their captain. He’d come from Izumitate Junior High as their captain, and even though his black and orange uniform didn’t bear the same number, Suga could see it already. He was the backbone of their friendship. He’d be the backbone of their team. 

The two of them were so talented and strong that he could forget his own lackluster capabilities. Neither of them ever said a cruel word about the sets he kept sending low, or when his vertical wasn’t high enough, or the times he let the ball slip off his fingers instead of pushing it to a spiker. They never whispered about wishing they had a better setter or shook their heads in disappointment. 

Every practice reminded him that, if only for an hour and a half, he was a part of something great with people who shared the same dream. 

They still counted on him, even when he succumbed to fear and indecision when the ball was coming towards his outstretched hands, so he stayed up into the wee hours of the morning to watch matches while he doodled different position variations and wrote up new communication signals during the classes.

He didn’t want to insult his seniors by giving them advice, but the new first years drank in his ideas and suggestions like a poor soul in the desert dying of thirst. Suga hadn’t realized how badly Karasuno needed their combined font of energy, like somehow their original senpai had taken all of their team spirit when they graduated and left them with nothing. 

Night after night of sitting alone in his family’s apartment, staring at vague texts from his parents and eating whatever food he could come up with, he resolved to use every bit of strength he had and whatever means necessary to beat apathy and negativity away from their team. 

The first years deserved better, and they made it easy.

Just a few days into practice, he caught Nishinoya rummaging through someone else’s bag in the club room and, instead of getting embarrassed, or pretending like nothing happened, the diminutive first year unabashedly informed Suga that he was going to steal a comic book from Tanaka because he wouldn’t agree to lend it to him. Going further, he asked if Suga wanted in on the caper. 

Suga’s adoration for their new libero was secured immediately, but Suga had more than enough devotion to go around.

The others were quiet, and they endeared themselves to Suga in the same way a nest of soft, squirming baby bunnies made you want to protect them with your life. 

Tanaka Ryuunosuke was something else entirely. 

During the first few days, he circled the other first years like an eagle deciding on its next meal, but his entire demeanor changed the first time Nishinoya dove to catch a ball while attempting a complicated tuck and roll maneuver. He failed spectacularly, flailing like a cat falling from a ten story building, but Tanaka was awestruck. 

Daichi thought he was nuts, but Suga would swear until his last breath that Tanaka’s pupils had actually turned into shiny little hearts. 

From then on, they were inseparable, so much so that Suga caught Asahi looking around one morning with his brows furrowed in confusion. 

“Lost your marbles or something?” Suga asked. 

Asahi frowned as he brought his hand up to tug on the ends of the strands of hair that had escaped his ponytail. “It’s just… It feels weird that Tanaka-kun is here and Nishinoya-kun isn’t.”

Suga’s head jerked back in surprise at Asahi’s astute assessment. Nishinoya was running late, and Tanaka was moping in the corner of the gum. 

He added two things to his list of Tanaka-specific observations that afternoon. The guy pouted when one of his new-found friends was absent and his emotions danced freely on across his face. 

Another memorable addition was made when Daichi executed an especially smooth receive. Suga opened his mouth to say something but another voice beat him to it. 

“Nice receive, Sawamura-san!” 

Suga whipped his head around to find Tanaka smiling back at him. “Beat ya to the punch, huh Sugawara-san?”

Heat rose on Suga’s face while frenetic energy flooded his limbs and fluttered in his lungs. He never backed down from a challenge. “I gave you that one for free, Tanaka-kun.” 

Tanaka’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “That how it is?”

“Yeah,” Suga said, barely able to contain his grin. “That’s how it is.”

The next time Asahi spiked through a block, they both cheered loudly enough that Kurokawa-san told them to settle down. When Ennoshita subbed in a couple minutes later, they both shouted “good luck” at the exact same time. Nishinoya bumped the ball perfectly, and Suga couldn’t hold back his laughter when Tanaka hooted so voraciously that Asahi covered his ears. 

Eventually, it was his turn to set. Suga’s stomach dropped as the ball floated toward his fingertips. Feeling his nerves wiggle their spindly fingers at the base of his spine, he called Asahi’s name out of habit. 

Tanaka’s voice boomed around them. 

“Nice set, Sugawara-san!” 

When Daichi mouthed ‘What?’ from across the net, Suga ignored him. It was much safer to stare at the woven nylon strings of the net until his blush subsided or the next play started, whichever came first. 

His observations kept him busy during the day and company at night, when he tugged his blankets up to his chin and hoped that Tanaka’s various smiles and court rituals could protect him from the hollowness that followed him home from school. 

At the very end of the list, in very fine print, he added how much he liked the way his name sounded coming from Tanaka’s lips. 

  
  
  
  
  


Karasuno secured a place at the Interhigh qualifiers, but it was difficult to appreciate earning that spot when the summer tournament was right around the corner. Daichi attempted to cut the tension by treating the first years to steamed buns after practice. 

Suga should’ve seen his damnation in the way Tanaka’s eyes sparkled with tears of joy. 

They walked to their usual spot outside of Sakanoshita Market, where they ran into members of the basketball club. Daichi narrowed his at them while Suga puffed out his cheeks trying not to laugh. A fellow second year on the team called out to them. 

“Should you really be treating yourselves if you’re not winning anything?”

Before either of them could react, Tanaka was between them, challenging the entire team to a fight with his fists in the air. 

The cashier shooed them away with a broom and a bag of meat buns before Tanaka could make good on his threat, much to Suga’s disappointment. He didn’t need to see Daichi’s face to know he was glaring, but Suga couldn’t help winking at Tanaka from behind Daichi’s shoulder. For his efforts, he was rewarded with a surprised smile that lifted his spirits even more than the aroma of barbecued meat. 

Daichi’s promise of food and their almost-altercation hadn’t dispelled the tension entirely, but the outing gave Suga the chance to watch Tanaka interact with everyone in a new environment.

He patted Ennoshita’s back when he accidentally choked on a large bite and stayed until Ennoshita pushed him away with a light shove. He squeezed Daichi’s shoulder to thank him for the food. He inched close enough to Asahi that the third year could lean on him when Nishinoya peppered their future ace with questions like, "Could you bench me, Asahi-san??"

Suga melted into the twilight, caught in the cozy cadence of conversation between his teammates, but he was also left wanting something he didn’t know how to ask for. By the time they agreed to head their separate ways home, he realized he’d wrapped his arms around himself. 

He almost screeched when, suddenly, Tanaka slung a bare arm around his shoulder. “You cold, Suga-san?” 

It was a warm spring night, nice enough that most of the team was still in short sleeves even after the sun had set, and Suga’s neck burned where their skin touched. He shivered anyway. 

“Hope you’re not gettin’ sick,” Tanaka murmured, his breath ghosting over the shell of Suga’s ear. “I gotcha though.”

As Tanaka slotted his body closer, Suga worried he’d need a defibrillator to get his heart beating again.

“You’re kinda worrying me,” Tanaka said again. “Suga-san?”

“That’s my name,” Suga said weakly, “don’t wear it out.”

Tanaka let out a loud laugh, but it was drowned out by the sound of his sister’s truck barrelling toward them. Tanaka Saeko wasn’t a frequent visitor, but Suga had seen her enough times to recognize both her car and familiar bleached hair. 

When Tanaka let his arm slip to wave her down, Suga had to grip his own clothing to prevent his hand from coming up to snag Tanaka’s wrist, to keep him. 

Tanaka clamored into the passenger side of the truck, but Saeko was focused on Suga. She jerked her thumb toward the back seat with an arched brow. Suga shook his head. They repeated their gestures until she pointed at him and mouthed “Next time!” before she pulled away, taking Tanaka with her. 

Without his furnace-level body heat, Suga did feel cold.

  
  
  
  
  


The return of Coach Ukai turned their lives upside down. If Kurokawa-san was spartan, Ukai was relentless. His expectations settled in the stratosphere, but Suga didn’t think twice about redoubling his efforts. 

Ukai could guide them to Nationals, and no one would be able to call them the “clipped-wing crows” or the “fallen champions.” Even when his eyelids were heavy with exhaustion while he tried to do homework or when he woke up with his muscles begging for mercy, he knew it would be worth every tear, ache, and sacrifice. 

He wasn’t the only one with the same thought.

On the Saturday before the summer Interhigh, Suga hadn’t noticed when Tanaka entered the club room — he usually burst into the place like he owned it — so when he finally heard Tanaka’s voice, he jerked his head toward the sound. In the blink of an eye, every social filter he learned to keep himself in check evaporated. 

“Hey you,” he chirped, knowing his pupils were blown wide, like a cat ogling its favorite toy, and not caring in the slightest. “What’s up with that?”

Tanaka screwed up his face as if he thought he could just waltz into practice without having to answer for what he’d done but answered the question dutifully. “Uh, it was to help me feel refreshed, or something like that.”

Before he’d even finished talking, Suga was stalking toward him with his arms outstretched. The only warning Tanaka had was an excited, “Lemme touch it!” 

He screeched as Suga rubbed his newly shaved head but didn’t pull away while Suga ran his fingers over the short, coarse hairs on his scalp. With each touch, Suga’s comfort increased, and he giggled as he moved his hands back and forth with increasing speed. 

Tanaka caught his laughter, and Suga was shocked for the second time that morning by the appealing blush dusting his cheeks. He only removed his hands when Daichi pointedly cleared his throat a third time. 

Suga pinched Asahi as he walked by him on the way to the gym. If the way he squealed was any indication, Suga could safely say he wasn’t dreaming. 

When the first drill of the morning shattered his reverie -- remembering the warmth of Tanaka’s scalp against his palms and the dusty pink of his blush warming the browns of his skin -- Suga deflated with the assumption that, without the blindingly obvious bleached hair, Tanaka might be less noticeable, or interesting. Narita, one of the other first years, also wore his hair shaved, as did so many other students. Tanaka would be one among many. 

‘It’s almost a relief,’ Suga thought unhappily. On one hand, he’d miss being drawn to Tanaka’s presence. On the other, he might not lose any more sleep wondering why he couldn’t get Tanaka out of his head. 

After two hours of practice, a handful of flubbed sets, and one incident of Suga tripping over his own feet, he came to the profound conclusion that Tanaka’s flashy hair had absolutely no bearing on his magnetism. 

  
  
  
  
  


Coach Ukai’s practices dripped with blood, sweat, and tears, but it still came as no surprise to the third years that they were eliminated early from their bracket in the summer Interhigh. 

They changed out of their uniforms in their assigned team area, and Suga didn’t realize he was grinding his teeth until he heard his molars click against each other. The shared silence wasn’t unusual after a loss, but something about it struck him as unnatural. Casting a surreptitious glance around the room, he realized why. 

Grabbing a handful of empty water bottles from the bench behind him, he slipped out of the locker area to look for the missing members of their team. 

He didn’t have to wander far.

Suga froze in the middle of the hallway with a view of the wide expanse of Tanaka’s back, a view which would’ve been very welcome if Kurokawa-san hadn’t been standing in front of Tanaka, facing him. “You asked for my advice, so I gave it to you,” he said. “And it’s been the same since day one.”

“Yes, Kurokawa-senpai.”

“If you paid half as much attention to the game as you do to making a scene, you might get somewhere.”

“I won’t let the team down again,” Tanaka said with a solemn bow. “Thank you!”

At first glance, he might’ve given off the impression of a guy who didn’t bow down to anyone, but Tanaka was right there, defying everyone’s expectations. 

He went out of his way to seek out advice, to apologize when he didn’t have to, to stare at the floor and promise his improvement, not for himself but for the team. 

Suga’s head spun. 

His own vulnerability was buried under so many layers of overthinking, second-guessing, and insecurity that it was easy for him to accept his inferiority and move on. Tanaka’s vulnerability, on the other hand, was woven into the core of who he was. It ran so deeply and displayed itself so freely that it ended up turning into something like bravado and genuine humility. 

Without filling up the water bottles in his arms, Suga retreated in a daze. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


The next blow to the Karasuno Volleyball Club came when the third years decided as a group to leave the team to focus on their university plans. Their collective decision wasn’t entirely unexpected, but their team dwindled dangerously. Karasuno was close to not having a team at all. 

The stress of losing their starting players, coupled with the encroaching heat of summer, meant that Coach Ukai’s training methods turned into what future civilizations would see in a museum of human history labeled as “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Even so, everything they had been through that year was just a friendly punch on the arm compared to the blow that came next. 

Suga suffered through Ukai’s practices, just like Asahi and Daichi, because they’d trained individually, on top of team practice, because they saw it as the only path to Nationals, where they would take their place among the best teams in the country. 

Most of the first years weren’t willing to go to the same lengths. They quit before the Miyagi preliminaries, the first step on the path to Nationals. 

Suga had smiled with understanding despite knowing that he had failed them, and Daichi told them that they would always be welcome back if they changed their minds, but his own sense of failure made a semi-permanent home in his posture.

He’d frequently think back on this time in his life with mixed emotions. They missed their chance at Nationals, and the slump of Daichi’s shoulders would still haunt him, but they were not left alone. 

Tanaka, and Nishinoya, stayed. 

When Suga fell too deeply into ‘second-thoughts mode,’ as Daichi called it, Tanaka swooped in with a hand on his back and a “Buck up, Suga-san!” leaving it there until Suga gave him a sign that he was present. If the gymnasium got too quiet, Tanaka fractured the uneasy silence with a hoot or a cheer, telling each and every single remaining player when they had a great dig or led the pack during a run or seamlessly completed a play. Practice after practice, he carried the weight of their anxiety and replaced it with something that felt dangerously like hope. 

If Suga had gravitated toward Tanaka before because he was intriguing, or because he happened to like the way butterflies fluttered in his chest whenever Tanaka gave him the time of day, he was now drawn to him because Tanaka faced the doubt of their uncertain future like a knight going into battle. 

Suga added new notes to his list of observations and held on to each little piece of Tanaka etched into his memory like beads on rosary, each one slipping through his fingers, like polished beads with the power of salvation. 

Tanaka smiled with every muscle in his face and laughed with all of the air in his lungs. The very first time Tanaka laughed so hard he snorted, Suga was so unprepared for the sheer force of his joy that he tripped over his own feet and crashed into Daichi’s back, earning himself an unconcealed side-eye. 

He was over the top with his compliments, his apologies, and his anecdotes. The decibel level of his voice was naturally higher than inside-voice range. He had a protective streak that manifested as the strange urge to fight but he was mostly bluster. More likely than a fist fight was either a complete fizzling of attention, an eternal rivalry, or a fast friendship. There was nothing in between because Tanaka was not an in-between guy. He held out a hand when someone fell and poked his tongue out in concentration while neatly folding the towels when they came back from the wash. 

Every space he’d been had evidence of his presence, everything that touched him was personalized. He hung up posters in the club room, had badges littering his school bag, made sure his zipper pulls had keychains or straps, and doodled on every available surface of his workbooks. 

Tanaka was the first one to volunteer, even when he didn’t know what he was signing up for, and never backed down upon finding out. 

On a particularly rainy day, earlier in the year, Tanaka’s blind enthusiasm had him scrubbing mud off the club room floor. Suga had been so sure he’d wiggle his way out of such an annoying job that he’d cracked his knuckles and grabbed a bucket to do it himself. Instead of an empty club room still filthy from their outdoor shoes, he’d found Tanaka on his knees, scrubbing the floor with a handheld brush.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Ennoshita, Narita, and Kinoshita returned to the team after the summer break, but Suga’s overwhelming gratitude and relief were not enough to shield him from waking up in a cold sweat, worrying about how they were supposed to come together when they had fractured so completely. 

On one of these restless nights, Suga put the scraps of his feelings together in a way that made him understand two fundamental things about himself. 

He realized that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, he liked Tanaka in the way that induced girls to confess to boys on Valentine’s Day. 

He wanted to be near Tanaka all the time, and he wanted Tanaka to feel the same. 

  
  
  


The epiphany itself wasn’t a problem, but now that he’d put the idea of having some sort of relationship with Tanaka in his mind, all trains of thought led to exactly one destination. _That_ was a problem. 

They might’ve missed their chance at Nationals, but the March Interhigh was less than six months away and Suga was, for the first time in his volleyball career, the starting setter. He needed to focus on something other than how much he wanted to touch Tanaka’s head, or see him smile, or feel his body close.

Fortunately, Suga had two people who put up with him. 

“Whatcha doin’ tomorrow?”

Daichi blinked a couple times before he caught up. “Saturday?”

“Duh.”

“Practice,” Daichi deadpanned. 

Suga glanced left and right before planting a fist squarely in Daichi’s abdomen. “You know what I meant!”

“Babysitting afterwards,” Daichi choked out while he turned his vulnerable middle away from Suga’s clenched fist. “Want to join?”

Suga’s smile took over his face. “Damn right I do!” 

As simply as that, Suga found himself spending a beautiful afternoon in a park by the Sawamura home, chasing two seven year-olds while they shrieked at the top of their lungs. 

It wasn’t a widely-distributed fact, but Suga had a soft spot for kids, and especially the Sawamura twins. They looked like exact Daichi miniatures with ten times the energy and the fervent desire to play for hours on end. 

The three of them were engaged in a fast-paced game of battle tag, their version of the game consisting mainly of rolling around and screaming whenever you got tapped. It was Suga’s favorite because he could take full advantage of his permission to scream, to the twins’ absolute delight. Daichi acted in his usual capacity as the scorekeeper and Asahi beautifully fulfilled the role of ice cream-getter.

Their game drew naturally to a close, with their older brother awarding the two first prizes to the twins, who giggled as Suga fell to his knees in mock agony at his loss. Asahi handed the kids their ice cream first and took a second trip to grab their cones. 

“It’s hard to enjoy the finer things in life when you’ve just lost an epic battle,” Suga sighed, taking his ice cream from Asahi’s trembling hands. 

“Yes, so hard to enjoy ice cream. Woe is you,” Daichi quipped, licking a long stripe up his chocolate cone. 

Asahi sat on the bench next to Suga, visibly relaxed now that he’d successfully handed off the precious sugar-packed cargo. 

“Asahi understands,” Suga said, elbowing him. 

“You do look winded,” Asahi admitted. He caught Suga’s narrowed eyes and instinctively protected his ice cream. 

Suga left him alone, but stuck his tongue out for good measure. 

They ate with the ambient noise of the park in the background as they watched the twins make a mess of their chocolate and strawberry cones. When they were finished, Asahi handed them wipes and Daichi took one as Suga took the other to clean them up before they ran to the jungle gym a few feet away.

“So your parents are really on a date?” Suga asked, kicking the ground in a way he hoped looked casual. 

Daichi shuddered violently. “Don’t remind me.”

“I think it’s cute,” Asahi said. He’d gotten another wipe out of his bag and was cleaning melted ice cream off his hands.

Suga agreed wholeheartedly, but Daichi couldn’t react that dramatically and not expect to be teased. “Just think about all the _smooching_ they’re going to be doing, Daichi,” he said with a scandalized gasp. “Maybe even in public!”

“I don’t want to think about my parents kissing anywhere!” Daichi said. “And don'tsay what I know you want to say.”

Suga stopped waggling his brows and pouted. “Aw, you’re no fun anymore.”

“I’m alright with that,” Daichi said. “You should join the kids on the jungle gym if you want fun.”

“Maybe I will.”

“Please don’t,” Asahi said, eyeing the playground structure. “I don’t think those things are meant for people our size.”

Suga poked Asahi’s bicep. “You mean people your size.”

Daichi let a bark of laughter slip. “Not all of us are small like you,” he said, poking Suga back in the same spot. 

“You’re one to talk. We’re the same height!”

“True,” Daichi acquiesced. “I guess neither of us are like the jolly green giant over here,” he said, jerking his thumb toward Asahi. 

Asahi wilted with the nickname and, when he did, a thick lock of hair fell into his face. He tucked the loose strand behind his ear with an elegant curl of his fingers. If Suga hadn’t been nervous all of a sudden, he might’ve hit Asahi for being so damn pretty. He might still whack Asahi, but he’d have to save that for later in the day, when he ran out of awkward conversations to start.

“Soo…. Did you really have a crush on Tashiro-senpai?”

Daichi rolled his eyes, but shifted his seat awkwardly. “Can’t we just spend one afternoon together without you bringing that up?”

“Suga,” Asahi warned. 

“I know, I know,” Suga said, trying not to sound as disappointed as he felt. “I was just running my mouth, a rando rambler, a --”

“No, okay,” Daichi interrupted hastily. “I dunno.”

“Huh?”

Daichi snorted in Suga’s direction. “Why are you confused? You asked.”

“Oh,” Suga said, his eyebrows raised and lips parted with the sound. “Wait, really?” 

Daichi shrugged, though his movements were stiff, like he’d been frozen to the bench. “I mean, he was a really good senpai. I liked him a lot.”

Asahi stared intently at the grass in between his feet. “He was also pretty good looking,” he murmured, almost under his breath. 

Without missing a beat, Daichi agreed. 

For all of the hours he spent running over this conversation -- running it over, eyeing the tire tracks, backing up, and running it over again until he couldn’t stand to think about it anymore -- Suga had failed to consider the effect any secondary implications would have on his friends. The vanilla ice cream he’d just inhaled churned uncomfortably in his empty stomach.

“So…” Suga said, bile rising in his throat. “Does that mean you’re gay?”

“I don’t think so,” Daichi said thoughtfully. “I don’t know if I liked him like _that_. If I did… I mean, he was a really good captain. Maybe I thought it was a crush because I respected him, or wanted to be like him, or something.”

Teasing Daichi represented at least thirty percent of his comfort zone, and Suga grasped for an ounce of familiar territory. “Oooh, Sawamura-san, you’re so wise,” he cooed weakly. 

“And you’re being weirder than usual,” Daichi said, finally turning his head to look at him. In the sun, his irises caught the light like tiger-eye gems, and Suga could tell he was curious. It felt like a small victory. Being curious was so much better than being disgusted, or rebuked, or ignored. “What gives?”

Suga worried at his lower lip. “You’re okay with having a crush on a guy?”

“Shoulda known it was a trap,” Daichi said, sounding resigned like a father staring at a toddler who’d just drawn on the wall. 

“It’s not a trap!”

Asahi jolted, like he’d been miles away while the conversation droned on around him. “Oh. I did wonder why you cried so much when he graduated,” he added. 

“You shuddup,” Daichi spit. “Why are we talking about this again?”

“Suga brought it up.”

Suga reached across Daichi to pinch Asahi but he dodged out of reach. “Way to throw me under the bus!”

“You did though!” Asahi whimpered, curled into himself as he inched as far away as he could from Suga’s fingers.

“Stop being such a pushover.”

“Yeah Asahi, stop being such a wuss!” Suga said, suppressing his rising tide of manic giggles as he tried to crawl over Daichi. 

“Don’t make me hit you,” Daichi warned halfheartedly. Suga froze with his hands in the air and stared at Daichi until he sighed in defeat. “Fine, don’t make me think about hitting you.”

Slowly, Suga withdrew back to his seat. The twins were taking turns pushing each other on the swing set. They bickered while they were deciding who would sit in the swing and who would push, but, in the end, they always managed to switch places with neither meltdown nor guardian involvement. Quibbling over trivial matters might always be a part of their relationship, but they had Daichi for an older brother, and Suga couldn’t think of a better role model, or confidant. 

“I think I’ve got a crush on a guy,” he blurted out. 

Daichi blinked while he caught up with his sudden proclamation. “Uh, okay?”

“Okay?” Suga all but shrieked. “That’s it?”

“You were literally just ribbing me about my so-called crush two minutes again,” Daichi said, sounding bored. “Plus, we’re teenagers. I’m pretty sure most of us are hard-wired for crushes.”

“Ugh,” Suga said, slumping back into the bench. He had trouble reconciling his relief with his love of shock-value. “You read that out of a textbook or something?”

“We did read it out of a textbook in health class,” Asahi chimed in helpfully. “Maybe not put exactly that way, but with our bodies changing…”

Suga cut him off before Asahi could lecture them about hormones, or puberty, or _coming out_ , or whatever terrifying concoction of the three he deemed relevant enough to the conversation. All he needed to know was that it was okay, that they were okay. “So you guys aren’t weirded out?” 

Asahi shook his head and Daichi gave a resolute “Nope.”

“You’re not curious?” Suga asked. 

“No,” Daichi said bluntly at the same time Asahi said, “Well…”

“What do you mean, ‘well’?!”

“You’re not subtle,” Daichi answered for both of them. “You literally almost got hit in the head by a pass the other day because you were staring. We’re not idiots.”

“Never said you were,” Suga grumbled, sinking further into himself and crossing his arms over his chest. He’d always thought Daichi’s ability to read people was a positive quality. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

“Tanaka-kun is pretty hard not to look at though,” Asahi said out loud, rubbing his chin. “He really takes up whatever space he’s in.”

Suga wanted to protest the accusation but Asahi was right, so he wrinkled his nose in frustration. 

Daichi let his obvious delight at Suga’s discomfort leak into the smile that reached his eyes. “That’s a nice way of putting it.”

“Sometimes I’d prefer him to speak a little more softly, especially when he’s trying to tell me something,” Asahi said. “But he’s really proving himself to be reliable.”

“For sure,” Daichi mused. “I was kinda worried in the beginning, but at least I was right about his instincts being good. And he’s got a lot of power behind him.”

Asahi nodded slightly. “Does he need to scream every time he hits the ball though?”

Suga had stopped trying to parse the different feelings and thoughts that erupted one after another with the magma-powered force of geysers, but he recognized how important it was that Daichi and Asahi thought highly of Tanaka. Their words warmed him like a blazing fire on a cold night. He’d been listening with a growing smile until he felt the need to jump in to defend him. “Just ‘cuz you’re jumpy doesn’t mean he has to change the way he plays. Especially if it’s not doing anybody any harm.”

“I guess,” Asahi said, sounding thoroughly unconvinced. 

Suga wasn’t worried. He had plenty of ammunition. A whole list of it. “I think it makes everything more exciting. Whenever he attacks the ball it’s like he’s trying to pump all of us up, too.”

Asahi nodded slightly as he processed Suga’s words against his thoughts, but all he came up with was a simple, “Maybe.”

Suga raised his hands and let them fall dramatically to the bench with a long, drawn-out sigh. “Oh come on! What about that really wild expression he gets that’s kinda scary but also kinda incredible, like nothing else exists outside of the game? Or the way he goes from wanting to punch someone’s lights out to bawling his eyes out in, like, a millisecond? You can’t tell me it doesn’t feel good to have a first year that already cares so freaking much about our team? He’s like… He’s like…” Suga grabbed his hair with both hands and groaned in frustration. “He’s like a breath of fresh air!”

Asahi had watched him catch his breath with growing concern, but Daichi was the one who spoke next. 

“Huh. You really do like him.” Both Asahi and Suga looked to Daichi, who had his brow furrowed in thought. “What’re you going to do about it?”

The question was a bucket of ice water on the glowing embers that they’d be stoking in Suga’s heart. 'After' didn’t exist yet. 

“I think I might know how you feel,” Asahi said, saving Suga from whatever half-assed joke he would’ve come up with to change the subject. “Er, how both of you might feel. Or maybe not. I don’t know. For me, It’s like when you meet someone who is the complete opposite of you in all of the best ways and it’s hard to tell whether you want to be more like them or whether you want to, ah,” he paused to look down at his fingers laced together in his lap, “be closer to them. Or if either of those are even possible.”

By the time Asahi trailed off, his eyes were glossy, and Suga’s empathy traveled up into his throat and lodged itself in his esophagus. 

Daichi rubbed Asahi’s back until the twins decided they were done and scrambled back to the bench. They babbled about their adventures, all of which they’d witnessed from the bench but silently agreed were way more interesting in the retelling. 

  
  
  
  
  


The Karasuno Volleyball Club learned the hard way that looking up only meant that you didn’t see how far you could fall. 

Two weeks before their much anticipated match against Date Tech at the Miyagi Interhigh, Coach Ukai collapsed.

They played without him and crumbled into dust at the foot of Date’s Iron Wall. 

Asahi was shut out again, and again, and again, until Suga could barely breathe let alone make a decision. The edges of his vision blurred with each swarm of hitters, with Asahi’s visible frustration, with each panicked shout of his name, with each net of overlapping possibilities for plays made useless by the time it took him to decide where the ball would go. 

Dateko’s score went up, point by point, until it was all over. 

Anyone who’d played a club sport knew what it felt like to lose, but this loss went beyond the court. It broke _them_. 

Suga watched from the club room door as Asahi shouted at Nishinoya, as Nishinoya grabbed him and shouted back, as Asahi stepped on their mop and snapped it in half.

Asahi had asked them why they didn’t blame him for their loss, like it was his fault, like the entire team didn’t know that it was the setter who was supposed to clear the path for the ace. 

It was the setter who had let them all down. 

All he could see when he closed his eyes at night was that broken mop and their broken team. When he had his hands over his ears, begging for the sound of cracking wood to stop, and when he squeezed his eyes hard enough that his inner pain manifested in the expression on his face, the only thing that cut through the darkness, like one of his powerful straights, was Tanaka. 

The fight between Asahi and Nishinoya had not only ended with Asahi quitting the team but also with Nishinoya getting suspended, and heartbreak lined Tanaka’s handsome features like someone had inked it beneath his skin. He was too earnest to hide his feelings, though Suga was sure he wouldn’t want to, even if he could. 

Being close to Tanaka felt urgent in a way Suga didn’t understand. He didn’t want to confess his feelings because he still wasn’t sure what to call them, or that he’d even be worthy of them if he were. He just wanted to be near him, to know him, even if whatever little they had to start with eventually came to nothing, even if Tanaka would never feel anything for him other than the respect Suga automatically earned by outranking him in school.

The cherry blossoms were just beginning to open when Suga queued up for the formal closing ceremony with the rest of the student body. The fragile, near translucent petals that had unfurled early clung desperately to the branches that waved in the gusts of air still touched by winter chill. If they fell early, they’d lose their chance to live on.

His eyes trailed after a falling blossom, while a plan took shape in the back of his mind. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed, please follow [AceMossy](https://twitter.com/AceMossy) if you don't already and tell her you love her. Or just remind her that her art is amazing and we're so blessed to have her in this fandom. 
> 
> _Be You to Me_ is the start of a three part series. The second installment will be out this summer, and the start of the third (and final) work later this fall. 
> 
> A big thank you to the mods of the Big Bang and all of my gratitude to YOU for reading!


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